No individual can hold our government accountable and public officials accountable alone. The Lens serves as that ever-present watchdog, working on our collective behalf and serving our community at all times.
--Nicholas Peddle

MOOC bandwagon shows signs of slowing down | Hechinger Report – Enrollment in Massive Online Open Courses continues to grow while attendance at brick and mortar colleges dips. However, low performance scores and high dropout rates continue to plague online course providers, and now MOOCs are feeling a backlash from professional educators.

Environment

A federal appeals court gave BP a partial victory on Wednesday by ordering a lower court judge to reconsider his interpretation of a settlement with claimants who filed billions of dollars of claims against the oil company after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. …

In a divided opinion, the majority found that the formula that measured a potential loss needed to be clarified. “

Federal flood insurance rates to rise after Hurricane Sandy | Time – New FEMA flood insurance rates took effect on Oct. 1, and some premiums skyrocketed while coastal property values plummeted. TIME senior editor Bryan Walsh says that while the changes may be too abrupt, they are not unfair. “If the pain is great now it’s because subsidized policy owners have essentially been given public money for years, even decades.”

Cops get new scooters, iPads from FQMD | NOLA Defender – The French Quarter Management District donated the equipment, worth over $20,000 to the New Orleans Police Department. Throw in some ironic threads and a retro-hat, and we could create the near-impossible: hipster cops.

Legislators use Tulane scholarship program to help connected insiders | WWL-TV – WWL’s Mike Perlstein and The New Orleans Advocate’s Gordon Russell investigate a familiar, but still irritating story of scholarship favoritism. “While the most egregious excesses of the scholarship giveaway have been reined in since they provoked a public outcry 20 years ago, the program is still, in the words of Metropolitan Crime Commission president Rafael Goyeneche, an ‘insider’s club.’ ” The initial stories in 1993 were reported for The Times-Picayune by Tyler Bridges, now a reporter at The Lens.

Land Use

The 600-page document replete with explanations, definitions and flow charts is expected to replace the zoning ordinance drafted in 1970 and amended regularly ever since. But first, city planners said they would try to incorporate public comments into the new plan, just as they had after the first round of community meetings in 2011.

Mark Moseley blogs at Your Right Hand Thief. Until mid 2014, Mark Moseley was The Lens' opinion writer, engagement specialist and coordinator for the Charter Schools Reporting Corps. After Katrina and the Federal Flood he helped create the Rising Tide conference, which grew into an annual social media event dedicated to the future of New Orleans.